The Writers

James Aden

Northern lad James, who has just started an MA in sciptwriting at Goldsmiths, began writing afer he saw a West End play and thought, I could do that. His first piece of writing was produced as a reading at the Groucho club and earned him a Film Four commission. He is hard at work on his first novel, "Ena Sharples was a Tranny". James's motto is: if you can't spell it, fuck it, find another word.

Hedva Anbar

War Games

Hedva writes short stories and more recently drama. She has never tried her hand at poetry but for eighteen months was a member of Thin Raft, an English language poetry circle in Basle Switzerland.

Kate Ansell

The Terrible History of Two Dachshunds Belonging to Mrs Jemima Green

Service Station

Kate Ansell is studying for an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, while holding down a day job somewhere inside the M25. Occasionally she writes features for the BBC's Ouch! website. Sometimes she does short stories. Mostly she is working on a novel.

Helen Bailey

Irene

Helen Bailey was born in 1958 in Sheffield and lives in Hackney, East London. The view from her desk is of a four crow oak tree. She has had several poems published and would like to write a really good collection of short stories. Born in the middle of the night in the Chinese year of the dog, she is doomed to be eternally restless.

Katy Darby

The Beginning of the End of the Pier

Katy writes poetry, plays, songs and prose as well as acting, singing and directing. By day she temps. She just can't make up her damn mind what she wants to do because they're all so fun and none of them feel (or pay) like work, so they must be worthwhile. Apart from the temping, obviously. She's had a couple of short stories and poems and a play published, but the first novel still sits under the desk, neither published nor likely to be. Oh well.

Patricia Debney

November

Patricia Debney is an American writer who has been living in Britain more years than she cares to count. She has published short stories, translations, and recently, prose poetry. In 2001 she won the Mathew Prichard Short Story Award, and she has been shortlisted for the Asham Award twice. She has a novel and memoir 'doing the rounds'. By day she is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Kent.

Henderson Downing

Stigmata

Henderson Downing was born in Cornwall in 1969. He was educated at the University of Bristol and then re-educated in a secondhand bookstore in Notting Hill (where he spent several years combining work with play and explaining to tourists that Hugh Grant had never worked there). He has had stories, poems, and essays published in several small press magazines - most recently a piece 'on bottle banking for beginners' in Kilimanjaro. He lives in London.

Mickey Feather

Loose Thread

Mickey Feather was born near the Tyne, fell in love by the Clyde and lives on the Thames; currently spins webs and yarns, researches computer games and teaches multimedia; is a dog's best friend.

Alex Fleetwood

Kites

Alex Fleetwood studied music and worked for several poorly-funded opera companies before switching to TV and is currently developing a film opera with Illuminations TV, paying the rent by doing a businessy job at Channel Four. Alex is a member of the Fiction II group at the brilliant writer's website www.writewords.org.uk and is currently working on a short story which seems to be mutating into a novel.

Sally Foote

Shelly Finds A Film

Sally Foote was born in Cape Town, but got out before it went all trendy. She arrived in England in 1998 after a 2-year stint researching and writing documentaries in the Johannesburg Television Industry. Despite once being voted "Most likely to write a novel" by friends, she abandoned Journalism for the "joys" of IT and now works as a Systems Analyst. Efforts to continue to live creatively (albeit part-time) have thus far spawned several short stories and the opening chapters of her first novel.

Jules Gibson

Neighbourhood Watch

Jules Gibson is a man with axes to grind, but never enough time to grind them. He has just ditched social work in favour of teaching, which he hopes will be 2.7% less bureaucratic as a profession, and will give him access to large numbers of cheap books and impressionable children. These children he shall enslave and force to fashion tens of thousands of mini-axes with which to attack any politician who, at the Final Hour, refuses to dress up in an owl costume and chat, "I renounce capitalism". His only published literary work was entited, "Where to play pool in London".

Frank Goodman

It's Your Call

Tomorrow May Rain

Frank Goodman was born in East London but now lives in Bromley, Kent. (It's his own fault, so there's no need to commiserate.) Frank won the Wandsworth London Writer Competition back in '94 and was the Churchill Theatre's New Playwright of the Year in 2002. To date he had completed one novel, three plays and innumerable short stories. He is currently working on a (hopefully) comic novel about a fringe theatre playwright and a play adaptation of the classic thirties French film Le Jour se Leve.

Lewis Hall

Trash

Lewis was born in 1984 in Leeds and is currently studying a BA in English Literature With Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Taking part in Tales of the Decongested is, so far, his only real achievement but he hopes to develop a more exciting biography over time.

Sally Hinchcliffe

Witching Hour

Sally Hinchcliffe was born in London and is living there now, having recently returned from two years living and working in Swaziland. She is currently combining working at Kew Gardens with doing the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA and working on a novel.

Sara Hiorns

All The Hairdressers I Have Ever Been To

The Occasional Table

Born in West London in 1972, Sara was brought up in North London and now lives in East London with her boyfriend and daughter. She has written a number of short stories, a biography of her Nan and is near to completing a novel that deals with the effects of regeneration (or "gentrification") on areas of London. Sara studied English at Sussex and History at Goldsmiths and has done a lot of work on London's history. She currently works at the Royal College of Art.

Linda James

The Miracle Of Breasts

After modeling, singing and living abroad for 10 years, Linda James returned to the UK and lectured in English before becoming a full-time writer. She has had one book and a number of short stories and poems published. Now, she is concentrating on writing for the screen: she has written a number of feature films and co-written a psychological thriller for television. She also enjoys being the Creative Writing Tutor at The Camden Centre in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

Katherine May

Swallowed

Katherine May is 27 and lives in Rochester, Kent. She writes short stories and is currently working on her first novel. She is also a founder-member of the Medway Mermaids, an all-female writing circle. When not writing, she likes making chutney and listening to grrrl punk.

Tracy Maylath

Kwik Save

Lantirn

Tracy Maylath has an MA in Creative Writing from London University. For the last ten years she has been performing on the poetry circuit and is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel. She has had work published in Rue Bella, Rising and The Illustrated Ape. Despite this, she hasn't yet managed to master the art of the biography.

Diana Mitchener

Tale Ends

In 2000 and 2002 Diana Mitchener won the performance category of the Muse and Music Monologue Competition and enjoys performing her poetry regularly. A prized possession is the Biscuit Medallion won at a Poetry Slam in April. Her most bizarre experience was reading 'Tale Ends' at a friend's funeral service.

Andrew Newsham

One Too Many Geoffreys

Andrew Newsham was born in Burnley in 1975. He won the Esquire prize for short fiction in 2001 and became the first writer from Europe to be invited to America by the Jack Kerouac Writers in Residence Project in 2003. He now lives in Birmingham and is working on a novel. Four of his latest stories appear in the anthology, Dreams Never End, which is available in all good bookshops.

Alex North

Out Of Ten

Alex North has nearly completed an MPhil in Writing at the University of Glamorgan for which she has written a novella and a collection of short stories. Just the dreaded critical paper to go now.

She worked in London as a money broker for a while and decided that she needed to move to a place where they had windows in their offices and big skies - so she moved to Wales and did a degree in English and Theatre.

Alex has been teaching Creative Writing to keep herself out of mischief and has had a couple of short stories published. She aims to up that number considerably once the MPhil is complete and she has her life back.

Mark O'Neil

puppybunny

Mark O'Neil is 28, and completed a writing course at Goldsmiths. He reads occasionally with other wordy-folk at a flower shop in Hither Green. He's been writing for years, but is a recent convert to the joy of soup making.

Nina Robertson

Beanie

Nina Robertson lives between London and the Norfolk Broads. She is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College. She is working on her first novel.

Liz Rosen

What We Know

Liz Rosen has published her short fiction and non-fiction in various publications. She has worked as an associate producer for television news and as a writer for Nickelodeon Television. In 1993 she won a Writer-in-Residence Fellowship at the Syvenna Foundation (Texas) and in 1994 was chosen by Glimmer Train as one of its top twenty-five new writers for their Short-Story Award for New Writers contest. Her short fiction appeared in Above Ground: an Anthology of Southern Writers, and has been read on the radio and at the Fifth International Conference on the Short Story. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in literature on contemporary apocalyptic fiction and film.

Imogen Salt

The Beginning

Imogen Salt is 29 and has been a poet for ages. She does readings in and around London and has been printed in Magma, Inclement and Rising. Once had a short erotic story published by Black Lace. Recently got a bit stuck with poems so wrote a story. Can only do really short things...got a short attention span. Just moved to Hastings.... is that enough?

Alessandra Sartore

Satellite

Alessandra Sartore learnt English in her native Italy by listening to David Bowie records. She came to London to meet The Clash and wrote for "Rockstar" magazine. She is completing an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College and has written a collection of short fiction If I Was a Good Girl, Would I Write Such Wicked Stories. Her debut novel Trail features Cambodian refugees, drug smuggling and revenge.

Amanda Schiff

MI ARGENTINA QUERIDA (My Beloved Argentina)

Amanda Schiff left school at sixteen to pursue a career in film, and is now an independent producer and teacher of screenwriting. She was shortlisted for the 2001 Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award, and a short story "Anamorphic Breakup" will be published in the launch issue of Mechanic's Insitute Review (MIR) this autumn. Amanda is writing a novel about love, death and supernatural possession set in Los Angeles. It has nothing to do with the film industry.

Sasha Smith

Home Sweet Home

Sasha wishes she could say she'd published in hundreds of magazines and had a book of short stories on the way, but she can't. What she can say is that she runs a writing group south of the river, started writing when she was eight - mainly to keep out of the firing line of a horrible teacher with a mean temper who liked to throw chairs - and plans to continue until she dies...

Ashley Stokes

Post-Leading Man

Ashley Stokes lives in Norwich and teaches creative writing for the University of East Anglia and the Open University. He has published over 20 short stories and won a 2002 Bridport Prize for The Suspicion of Bones.

Julie Tomasz

Valediction

Julie Tomasz is a travel writer and editor by profession, and a short story writer by devotion. During bouts of writer's block and between freelance assignments, she volunteers as a cat socialiser, does unreasonable amounts of laundry, and cannot deny watching "Neighbours". She lived in Budapest and her native New York before moving to London two years ago.

Fiona Ritchie Walker

Madame Malabar

Fiona is originally from Montrose, Scotland, now living in NE England. She works full-time for the fair trade organisation Traidcraft and writes early morning and evening, so her house is a tip. She writes mainly poetry. Her first collection Lip Reading was published by Diamond Twig (www.diamondtwig.co.uk) in 1999. She won a New Writing North Award 2004 to complete a second collection, Garibaldi's Legs, to be published by Iron Press next year. The award also provided a years' mentorship to develop her short story writing. One of her short stories will be published in Newcastle Stories 1 (Comma Press) in August 2004.

Christian Walsh

Electricity

Christian Walsh is a journalist, writer and editor, living and working in London. He travels when he can, and writes about travel when he can't. In between, Chris writes short stories of increasing length and verbiage, but has yet to discover whether Word has a page limit. Until he drops off the map into infiinite drivel, expect to find more of his noodlings just a few clicks away: www.christianwalsh.com.

Margot Watts

Flight

Margot Watts was born in Australia and has lived and worked in London for the last decade or so. She was first published at the age of 9 (yes, it was in her school magazine), and has written on and off ever since. This is the first story she has read at Tales of the Decongested.

Kit Whitfield

Plain Useless

Kit Whitfield holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she studied under W.G. Sebald and Andrew Motion. As well as having several short stories anthologised, she is the author of numerous cute non-fiction books, some written under a pen name, and a lot of sales copy. She is currently re-drafting her first novel, which is a literary thriller about werewolves, if you can imagine such a thing.

Heather Williams

The Cardboard Woman

Heather Williams is 27 and lives in London. She grew up in sedate Connecticut suburbia and is about to move to Berlin. Her writing is fuelled by the desperate belief that she must be good at something. Her first-ever published story will appear in the September issue of Birkbeck's Mechanics Institute Review, and she is working on a novel.

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